Sandow Unit 5

Luminant (formerly TXU) is near construction of the 581 MW power plant Sandow 5 in Milam County, Texas, that would use circulating fluidized bed technology and burn Texas lignite coal. Sandow 5 would be the fifth coal-fired plant at the Sandow Generating Station. Luminant operates one unit at this station and the remaining three units are operated by Alcoa; Luminant bought rights to build Sandow 5 (and the accompanying permit) from Alcoa in 2005. In August 2006, TXU and Alcoa went to court to loosen the terms of the 2003 consent decree, but were rebuked by U.S District Judge Sam Sparks.

Construction was permitted in March 2007, when the U.S. District Court approved a stipulated resolution of the consent decree for the plant. This followed a lengthy litigation of TXU’s proposed 11 plants by a coalition of environmental groups.

In July 2009, Luminant announced that the Sandow 5 unit would not go into full operation before September. Although the unit was synchronized to the grid and producing power in early July, construction delays and equipment issues prevented it from meeting a deadline for operation and emissions standards. The company expects the delay to take two or three months.

Sandow Unit 5 began operating in late September 2009.

Project Details
Sponsor: Luminant (formerly TXU) Location: Rockdale, Milam County, TX Capacity: 581 MW Type: Circulating fluidized bed Projected in service: 2009 Status: Operating

Citizen Groups

 * Stop the Coal Plant
 * Sustainable Energy & Economic Development Coalition, Karen Hadden, karen [at] seedcoalition.org
 * Texas Sierra Club, Neil Carman, neil_carman [at] greenbuilder.com
 * Texas Public Citizen, jcarraway [at] citizen.org

Employment
A 2011 Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies report, "A Fraction of the Jobs" found that coal-fired power plants underestimate jobs by more than half. The analysis looked at the six largest new coal-fired power plants to come online between 2005 and 2009, including Sandow, and combed through each project’s initial proposals and job projection data, including public statements, published documents and other material. They then compared hat data to actual employment — before, during and after construction — in the areas where the projects were built, relying chiefly on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.

They found that only a little over half - or 56 percent - of every 1,000 jobs projected, appeared to be actually created as a result of the coal plants’ coming online. In four of the six counties, the projects delivered on just over a quarter of the jobs projected. Only one county, the Walter Scott unit number 4 project in Pottawattamie County, Iowa, saw an increase in construction employment that was roughly commensurate with the numbers predicted before the project there got under way.

Related SourceWatch Articles

 * Coal plant litigation
 * Texas and coal
 * United States and coal
 * Carbon Capture and Storage
 * Existing U.S. Coal Plants
 * US proposed coal plants (both active and cancelled)
 * State-by-state guide to information on coal in the United States (or click on the map)